Sunday, February 12, 2012

Final Card: Bruce Von Hoff

This is the only Topps baseball card for Bruce Von Hoff (#530). Like Ron Campbell in 1967 and Dave Watkins in 1970, his major-league career was over before his only card was issued.



Bruce was signed by the Giants in 1964, and pitched in the minors for 7 seasons (1964-70), mostly at the double-A and A levels. He was a starting pitcher in all but his first season. After one season in the Giants' system, Von Hoff pitched for various Astros' clubs for 4 seasons, before moving on to the Reds (1969) and Cardinals (1970).

His only big-league experience came in 1965 (3 relief appearances, 3 innings) and 1967 (10 starts, 50 innings total).

I'm surprised he even has a card in this set, since a) he wasn't one of the Astros' top 12 pitchers in 1967 in terms of games played, and b) this is card #529 (in the last series), so there was plenty of time for Topps to pull this card in favor of someone else more deserving (like a Giants Rookie Stars card!)